


what the water gave me

by cherrysalad



Series: the town of the unexpected, unexplained and unbelievable [1]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Friendship, Gen, Magical Realism, Mermaids, Sirens, Sort of Happy, beronica if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-27 14:50:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16221347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrysalad/pseuds/cherrysalad
Summary: It's rare that anything can surprise the inhabitants of Riverdale, but the girl from the river manages it.





	what the water gave me

Riverdale is a place where unusual things happen. Screams come from the forest, there are people who seem not to age, sometimes ghosts can be seen dancing to the old fashioned music from Pop Tate's jukebox. It's a given that if you live in Riverdale you have to be alright with the strange and unexplained, so all of the residents are relatively unfazed by that sort of thing, they ignore the screams, smile fondly at the ghosts and take extra care to be polite to the immortals.

It's rare that anything can surprise the inhabitants of Riverdale, but the girl from the river manages it.

It's the summer before Betty's junior year of high school when her father bursts through the front door, rambling something about a girl down at sweetwater river. Betty snaps her book shut and gets up from the couch. Her mother rushes out of the kitchen to meet her husband.

"Slow down, dear," she says calmly. "What's happened?" Hal takes a minute to catch his breath.

"There's a girl washed up on the banks of sweetwater river," he explains. Alice's eyes go wide.

"My goodness!" She exclaims.

"Is she alright?" Betty questions.

"Pop Tate told me she's breathing but unconscious," Hal answers. "I'm going down."

"I'll come," Alice says "this will make a great story for the register." She hastily unties her apron and drapes it over the arm of the sofa. Betty says nothing, but follows her parents to the car. The drive to sweetwater river is short and silent, her mother is practically buzzing with anticipation in the front seat. There's already a crowd of cars parked near the bank of the river, which is unsurprising, in a town like Riverdale news travels fast.

There's a small ring of people blocking Betty's view of the girl, she catches sight of a familiar head of red hair and joins her friend.

"Hi Betty!" Archie says as she shoves her way in beside him.

"Hi," she says absently, craning her neck to see over the shoulder of the tall man who's standing in front of her. The girl steals her attention, she looks to be around Betty's age and she's beautiful with hair as black as crow's feathers, but there's something gaunt about her face and a subtle shimmering quality to her skin.

Like Hal said, she's unconscious and she looks peaceful. Dr. Gould is kneeling beside her, listening to her heartbeat through a stethoscope. All of a sudden her eyes flutter open, a collective gasp ripples through the crowd. She yawns and stretches her arms as if she were in a comfortable bed rather than lying on the rocky bank of a river. The stranger sits up and smiles revealing perfect teeth, something warm burned in Betty's chest.

"Hello," she says. The crowd is deathly silent, Betty can hear the sound of police sirens fast approaching. They come to a stop right by sweetwater and the Sheriff gets out of his car. Leave it to sheriff Keller to arrive after half the town. He elbows his way through the crowd and stares at the strange girl for a minute.

"Hello," she says brightly.

"Uh, hi?" He says, confused, it takes him a minute to remember why he's there. "I'm the Sheriff and I'm going to need you to come with me." The girl's eyes go cartoonishly wide, the picture of innocence.

"I haven't done anything wrong, have I?" She asks..

"No," Keller says, then he frowns. "I don't think so. I just need you to answer some questions." She smiles agreeably and hops to her feet, brushing off her soaked white nightgown. The crowd parts to let them and stares at the pair as they make their way to the police car. The sirens whine as they drive off, there isn't any good reason for Sheriff Keller to have them on, Betty guesses they make him feel important.

"That was so weird," Archie says as the crowd disperses. Betty frowns.

"I'll say," she mutters.

…

Betty finds out the details about the strange river girl earlier than most since her mother writes for the town paper. She knows the girl's name is Veronica and that her parents are dead and that's about as much as anyone knows. No one knows how Veronica ended up in the river or where she came from, she refuses to tell anyone about those things.

Betty also pieces together (from gossip delivered by classmates and her mother) that Pop Tate is going to take Veronica in, which makes sense. They both have an unsettling otherworldly quality about them.

When Betty gets to school on the first day of freshman year she meets Archie and Kevin outside.  
  
"Betty!" Kevin says enthusiastically. "You're not going to believe this!"

"What is it Kev?" She asks.

"You remember that weird girl that washed up on the shore of sweetwater this summer?" Betty nods. Like anyone could forget. "Well, she's starting school here!" Betty's eyes go wide.

"Weird," Betty says. It is weird, she can't imagine Veronica in a place like Riverdale high.

She catches glimpses of Veronica in some of her classes, she's dressed in a sophisticated black dress with a white collar and a string of pearls. She sits unfailingly in the front of the room, eyes alert and back straight and rigid.

Betty is a few minutes late to lunch so her friends have already sat down when she arrives in the cafeteria, her heart gives a startled leap when she sees the raven haired girl sitting among them. She approaches reluctantly and sits down beside Kevin.

"Hi," Veronica says. "Betty Cooper, right?" Betty nods.

"And you're Veronica..." she pause/. "Tate?"

"Legally, yes." Veronica smile/. "Archie here was kindly telling me all about your lovely school." Betty glances at Archie who's looking at Veronica with a big dumb grin and hearts practically floating around his head. Even Kevin looks a little besotted with the strange girl, Betty would be lying if she said she didn't understand it. There's something magnetic about Veronica, something about her big dark eyes and mysterious smile that makes you want to be near her.

"Are any of you going out for any sports this year?" Veronica asks before taking a bite of her fish stick and grimacing.

"I'm trying out for football," Archie offers eagerly. Veronica ignores him.

"I'm going to wrestle," Kevin says.

"You, Betty?" Betty shrugs.

"I might try out for cheerleading," she says. "I probably won't make it though."

"Why not?" Veronica asks, frowning.

"Because the head of the cheerleading squad is basically the devil and has some kind of vendetta against Betty," Kevin answers.

"Pretty much," Betty says.

"Cheerleading is stupid, anways," Veronica says. "You should come try out for swim team with me. You know how to swim, right?"

"Yeah," she says. "But not super fast." Veronica shrugs.

"You should try out anyways, you might be surprised," she says. Betty hesitates, but Veronica looks at her with those deep brown eyes and she caves.

"Alright," she says uneasily. "It could be fun."

...

Girls' swim team tryouts are the next day after school. Betty doesn't really want to go, but Veronica (who's in her last class) links their arms together and practically drags her to the pool, which is in its' own building next to the gym.

They change in the locker room with a handful of other girls. Veronica's bathing suit is a sleek black one piece, Betty feels stupid in her pink polka dotted bikini, but it's the only bathing suit she owned. She's not checking Veronica out or anything, but she notices a strange gleaming section of skin on her thigh, her heart stutters when she realizes that the skin is in fact a patch of silvery fish scales. She can't tear her gaze away.

"It's rude to stare," Veronica says, her tone is joking and she's smiling in amusement.

"Sorry," Betty says laughing nervously. She follows Veronica out of the locker room. The room with the pool in it is dim most of the light coming in through sky lights. There's a strange watery reflection on the ceiling.

Betty, Veronica and six other girls gather around the coach, Mrs. Middleton, who's also Betty's gym teacher. She tells them that they're each going to swim from one end of the pool to the other while she times them.

"I can tell you right now that with such a small group most of you are getting on the team," she says. Betty knows this bodes well for her. It's is alphabetical order by last names, which means Betty is second after Dolores Applewaithe. She did a lot of swimming this summer at the town pool and sometimes the old quarry, so she's well practiced, but she's not sure how fast she is. She feels silly and graceless as she swims, her legs kicking and arms flailing, but it feels fast enough. Mrs. Middleton won't tell them their times until they've all finished, so Betty won't know for a while.

"You did good, Betty," Veronica smiles encouragingly, Betty blushes. That's really the only approval she was looking for, even if Veronica does have scales, Betty thinks she's pretty cool. 

Veronica is the last to go, the rest of the girls have their turns and Betty watches with little interest. When Veronica gets in the pool she pays attention, she knows that this is going to be good since she's about ninety-five percent sure Veronica is some kind of humanoid aquatic creature.

Betty's right, Veronica swims across the pool at a speed no normal person would be able to achieve. All of the girls gasp, Mrs. Middleton claps her hand over her mouth. Veronica rises from the water like an ocean goddess.

"Holy shit," the coach mutters to herself. Everyone's staring at Veronica, Betty wonders if anyone else will notice the patches of scales on her otherwise smooth skin. Mrs. Middleton seems flustered telling the girls their times. Only two girls get cut, Betty makes it but just barely.

As they change back into their clothing Veronica grins at her.

"We made it!" She says. "Lets go to Pop's to celebrate, I can get us free milkshakes."

"Alright," Betty nods, she feels unusually calm about making friends with some kind of supernatural aquatic creature. There's something about Veronica that makes you want to trust her, even when the rational part of your brain is telling you to be wary.

They go to Pop's and get the free milkshakes Veronica promised with an order of fries to boot.

"You're a good swimmer," Betty says, and then immediately feels stupid because, duh. Veronica laughs.

"I grew up around a lot of water," she says with a wink. Or maybe Betty's imagining it.

"Where did you... grow up?" Betty asks nervously fiddling with the hem of her sweater sleeve.

"Somewhere really beautiful," she says wistfully. Betty's brain conjured up images of ancient sunken cities and colorful sea creatures.

"What happened?" Betty asks. "How'd you end up in Riverdale?" Veronica's face darkened.

"It's a long story," she says. "One I'm not particularly interested in telling."

"Okay," Betty says sheepishly. "I'm sorry for bringing it up." Veronica smiles uneasily.

"It's alright," she says. "Let's just... talk about more pleasant things."

…

The next day when Betty steps into school she's immediately swarmed by a crowd of overexcited girls.

"Is it true that Veronica is some kind of mutant mer-freak?" Ginger Lopez, one of Cheryl Blossom's cronies, asks. Betty takes a minute to reply, staring at her wide eyed.

"Uh," she says, then regains her senses. "No!" She says. "Of course not." Ginger raises an eyebrow.

"That's not what I heard," the she-demon herself, Cheryl Blossom, interjects. "Jamie Louis told me that she has scales!" There's a collective ew from the group of girls. Betty doesn't know what she can say to make the situation any better so she just elbows her way through the crowd and heads to her locker.

They don't follow her and no one bothers her during her morning classes, but when she gets to lunch she sees a crowd swarming around her friends's usual lunch table. She hears Archie telling them to fuck off. As Betty gets closer the crowd disperses. Veronica's sobbing into her hands.

"Hey," Betty says softly. "What's going on?" She puts a gentle hand on her friend's shoulder.

"Everyone thinks I'm a freak," Veronica says tearfully. "I thought here I'd finally be able to fit in... but it's worse than back home."

"You're not a freak, Ronnie," Archie says. "All these people are just assholes." Veronica shakes her head.

"They're right," she says. "I don't fit in here. I don't fit in anywhere." She stands up and rushes out out of the lunch room, Betty leaps to her feet, intending to follow Veronica but Archie grabs her arm.

"She probably just wants to be alone," he says. Reluctantly, Betty sits back down.

…  
  
Veronica doesn't show up at school the next day or the one after that. No one seems to know where she is, so Betty goes to Pop's to get to the bottom of it.

"What can I get for you today, Betty?" Pop Tate asks.

"Uhm," she said nervously. "Do you know where Veronica is? She hasn't been in school these past couple of days."

"She left," Pop says. "I always knew she was going to, she was meant for the water." Betty nods sadly, she'd known this is what probably happened. "That reminds me though, she left a note for you." He pulled a folded piece of lined notebook paper out of his apron pocket and handed it to her. She unfolded eagerly.

_You are the best person I've met, Betty Cooper. Come down to sweet water River and say my name three times if you ever want to visit._

_– Veronica_

Betty grins and tucks the note into her pocket.

From that day forward people report seeing a strange, naked dark haired girl darting through the water down at sweetwater and occasionally sunning herself on the shore, always disappearing before anyone can get close enough (unless that person is Betty Cooper).  


**Author's Note:**

> might continue this. what do y'all think?


End file.
